“...Is that so?” Isradine said thoughtfully, beginning to spin her shadowy form as she contemplated the news.
From Isradine’s reaction and Io’s solemn delivery of the news, Eliza gathered that this was a pretty big deal. She didn’t immediately understand why a Demon falling ill could be considered such, but an idea crossed her mind. Contracts were especially important to Demons, but nothing had been said about a way to get out of a contract. If that was the case, it was entirely possible that the only ways to get out of a contract with a specific Demon were for that Demon to die or for them to expire somehow.
Thinking back on her own contract, this theory explained another reason why part of her contract was that they couldn’t betray or knowingly sabotage the other. If she applied that reasoning to the clan leaders’ situation. It's likely that the Demons directly under him have similar conditions within their own contracts. And so, if the clan leader passes away, they’ll be freed from their contracts with him. Assuming this was correct, that left an important question.”
“If the clan leader passes away, who becomes the next clan leader?” she asked.
Io tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, “It's been a long time since we’ve had a change of leadership on that level, but traditionally, of the direct followers of the Demon that died, it’s whoever was nominated or, in the absence of that, whoever can regain the loyalty of the rest.”
“-And so, if the clan leader passes away, it’s safe to assume that each follower will attempt to do that?” Eliza clarified.
“Generally,”
Eliza subconsciously raised one of her hands to begin fiddling with her lower lip as she thought about the implications. It may not be the only reason, but the Shadow Weavers being on the verge of devolving into separate factions could explain why they seemed to be struggling.
Considering what happened in the Silverian Empire historically and assuming that Demons acted remotely the same way, It was most likely that each of the different ‘followers’ of the Clan leader were already making moves to ensure they were the ones who acquired that position.
“As fascinating as this is, why is it important for us to know?” Demitrus asked, “How much could the changes in leadership affect us? We’re little more than grunts at the bottom of the chain right now.”
Isradine stopped spinning and spoke up, “Depends. Has my candidacy been retracted by Grandfather?”
“He has not,” Io responded. He began to roll his shoulders back, stretching them out.
“Then, to answer your question, My Grandfather nominated me as a candidate to take over his place as a follower of the Clan Leader.” Isradine said, then added on, almost as if it was an afterthought, “Though it actually happening depends on whether I first become a Duke rank Demon and then prove my capabilities to the rest of his followers.”
Eliza realized she was fiddling with her lip again and consciously forced herself to stop by lowering her hand to her side. Meanwhile, Isradine continued, “If I don’t, one of the others will take his position when he passes away or retires. Ultimately, if I can take over grandfather’s place, I can contend for the position of Clan Leader.”
When she had finished speaking, the room fell silent. Eventually, Io said, “Now, I hope you both understand the position you’re in currently as the only two contracted followers of My Lady. You must learn how to wield your mana and to gather followers, especially since the contracts you’ve established have designated you each as her first,” he looked at Eliza, “and second follower, “ he finished looking at Demitrus. He continued, “You have a direct impact on whether she can qualify or not, and, i’ll add, it’s in each of your own best interests that she becomes as powerful as possible to achieve whatever goals drove you to become Demons.”
“...I see, but that leaves an important question.” Eliza said, turning her gaze to Io with a hint of wariness, “If Isradine’s success will make you unable to take the Patriarch's place, why’re you helping us?”
A smile slowly split across Io’s face, “Who knows? I’ve said all I needed to say,” He said, standing up, “Aside from further instructions on mana control in our future sessions, you’ll need to figure out anything else amongst yourselves.” He said as he walked out of the room.
The three watched him go in silence. Once he was gone, Eliza shifted on the floor cushion until she faced the other two and looked up at Isradine, “Do you know the answer to that?”
Isradine sighed, “Unfortunately not, from what I know, Io was one of grandfather’s first followers. I’ve known him since I was young, and I still haven’t gotten a good read on him. He's competent at what he does and always does what Grandfather asks of him. Most importantly, of grandfather's followers, few, if any, would complain if he was to succeed grandfather. Yet, for some reason, he refused the nomination in the past when it was offered to him, which opened up the opportunity for me to even have a chance.”
“What is this whole nomination thing in the first place?” Demitrus asked.
Isradine floated down closer to the floor so that Eliza and Demitrus didn’t need to bend their necks so much, “ It’s a way to assist in having a stable transfer of power, especially if everyone's first choice doesn’t work out. Without it, the risk of an entire Demons branch has the potential of splintering off from the clan. And, obviously, that would be a massive blow to the clan and the Clan Leader. Basically, if a Demon is expecting to die soon, they can name one of their followers, which typically is someone that's from the same family, as the one to succeed them, but this is entirely dependent on if they meet the conditions to qualify.”
“Which is to be of the same rank as the rest of the followers and to earn their approval?” Demitrus clarified.
“Yes.”
“Then, if the Clan leader is dying, why hasn’t he nominated a candidate to succeed him in the clan? Wouldn’t he want to ensure its stability?” Eliza asked.
“Theoretically. “ Isradine said,
Eliza raised her eyebrows in surprise, “What do you mean, theoretically? Why wouldn’t he want to?”
“The Clan Leader set up this system when he established the Shadow Weaver clan. Most likely, he didn’t account for he himself to pass away. Nominating a candidate is to basically announce that you’re going to die soon. Which would be catastrophic to your perceived strength if you don’t plan on dying soon.”
“He…established the clan? How old is he?” Demitrus asked.
“Around five hundred-thirtyish years?” Isradine said, her voice slightly hesitating as she thought about the answer
“Five hundred years!?” Eliza straightened in shock, “How long do Demons live!?”
Isradine slowly began to rotate again: "Demons age differently since we are so heavily connected with mana, meaning that it depends entirely on their capacity for mana. A Demon's mana capacity permanently expands as they gain more followers, but only if they gain more followers than they’ve had before.” Isradine answered with a hint of pride in her voice.
“So-” Demitrus titled his head as he processed the information, “-how does that translate into years?”
“Typically, Soldier rank Demons live on average a year, Counts live on average ten years, Dukes tend to live for a hundred, and it's estimated that a Demon King would be able to live for a thousand years in total.” She said, speaking quickly through the first couple of ranks but then bobbing up in excitement when she spoke about the lifespans of the higher-ranked Demons. She continued, “For example, Though the clan leader may not be a King rank Demon, he’s had six Duke-rank Demons under him at one point. So his current life expectancy is six-hundred years. All of this assumes that the Demon doesn’t die in combat, or, in much rarer cases, to an illness.”
“So as long as we keep getting more followers and more power, we could theoretically live forever?” Demitrus finished perking up with an excited gleam in his eyes.
Isradines excitement died down, “Theoretically, but it’s really hard to get Duke-rank followers. If it were easy, there would be far more than four Clan Leaders, none of whom have had enough followers to come close to becoming Demon Kings. And that doesn’t even account for the fact that you’ll most likely outlive your followers and all of their followers as well.” Isradine said, her tone becoming more somber as she spoke.
But then she brought excitement back to her voice as she reaffirmed, “But though it is hard, it is possible, and with us working together, I’m sure we’ll be able to reach higher than any Demon before us.”
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Eliza furrowed her brows and unconsciously began fiddling with her lip once again. Something was odd about Isradine’s perkiness. It felt like Isradine was trying to divert their attention away from something. Thinking over what Isradine had said, a question occurred to Eliza, Where did she and Demitrus fit into this? Specifically, the average life expectancy of humans was around seventy years. What happened to all that? Anxiety began curling in her gut as she asked, “...If it applies to us like other Demons, does that mean that Demitrus and I currently have about a year left to live?”
Isradine froze and went silent, clearly showing that she had wanted to avoid this question. Before Isradine had even answered, the excitement in Demitrus’s eye noticeably dimmed as the implications of Eliza’s question dawned on him.
Finally, Isradine said, “Less.”
“...Less?” Demitrus asked, His voice was low, and Eliza thought she heard a slight tremor in it.
“Less,” Isradine confirmed with a bob of her shadowy form.
“...What happens to all the years we would’ve lived as humans?-” A slight tremor came into Eliza’s voice, betraying the growing fear in her chest, quietly she added, “Where do they all go?”
“As I said, Demons are reliant on mana to live. Your transformations naturally include parts of your body that are essential for you to live. If you run out of mana, those will cease to work. And…” Isradine hesitated for a moment, before finally saying. “...since most of your mana is being consumed to bring about your transformations, you’re current lifespan is… shorter than a normal soldier rank Demon...”
Before Isradine had even finished speaking, Eliza suddenly understood why she felt like crap after losing access to Isradines mana. Her own mana was hardly enough to sustain her right now, and so, in essence, the way she was feeling was probably how a Demon felt when they were nearing the end of their lifespan, a variety of emotions flared up within Eliza, disbelief, fear, sadness, but one emotion prevailed over the other, anger. She lowered her gaze to the floor and tightly clenched her fist as she tried to hold back the surging fury that was flaring up in her chest. A large part of her wanted to yell and even scream at Isradine, but she held back. More than anything, she hated how little she had felt in control recently. The part of her that had been born from the many hours of training she had gone through refused to let her lose control of herself again. So she took several deep long breaths, and the room fell into silence as She and Demitrus processed this revelation. Isradine, for her part, had the sense to remain silent.
Eventually, Eliza quietly asked with a mix of suppressed anger tempered by fear of the answer, “How long exactly?’
“Without any followers, …you both have around a week to live,” Isradine said evenly.
Taking a deep breath, Eliza glanced over at Demitrus to see how he was processing this. His face was frozen, and his eyes showed a slight tremble. He quickly noticed her glancing over, and the look melted away, replaced by his usual smile, but Eliza was familiar enough with him at this point to see how tight of a smile it actually was.
Isradine continued, her voice a bit suppressed, “It is the reality Demons face, we may be born stronger than any of the surface races, but we have to fight to even live a fraction of the lives they can. I understand that you may be dismayed at hearing this, but know this. You have a massive advantage over any soldier rank Demon with your already fourteen or so years of life and your newfound magic.” She said in a reassuring tone, “ Learn to control your magic, prove your personal strength and prove the strength of your convictions, and followers will naturally begin flocking to you.”
“Even if they know we were humans before?” Eliza asked.
“...I can’t guarantee that it won't affect things, but with how many different species of Demons there are, Demons tend to have bigger concerns than what a particular individual species is, so long as they can prove their strength.”
“So, in short, we need to quickly become adept at using mana so that we can leave this place, and then we need to go out and get followers so that we don’t die, all within a week.” Demitrus summarized.
“In short.”
“Very well then, time is of the essence, so if either of you doesn’t mind-” he said with a casual tone. He closed his eyes, sat back, and adjusted the way he sat into a more comfortable position, “-I’m gonna continue practicing.”
Eliza begrudgingly agreed with his attitude and also shifted into a more comfortable position. She then closed her eyes and sunk her consciousness back into her mana well, looking for her own mana that had slinked off somewhere. It didn’t take her long to find it, and she immediately latched onto it, not having the patience to go on another wild goose chase. In her anger, she forcefully pulled her mana into her mana veins and then pushed it out into the air.
Once out, in spite of her mana’s protests, she expanded it as much as she could in the room. At first she could feel Isradine’s and Demitrus’s mana as they did their own exercises but after a certain point, it became too thin to detect even that. She dialed it back until she was barely able to feel them again. All in all, she was able to cover a fraction of the room in her mana.
Recondensing it, she now tried to condense her mana into a variety of simple objects. First, she condensed it into a circle, then a triangle, and then a square. Finally, she condensed the mana into a sphere. Finding that she was able to do the exercises with a fair bit of ease, she decided to increase the difficulty. She opened her eyes.
Almost immediately, she felt her control over her mana begin to slip. Looking up at where it, a black sphere with violet wisps dancing across its surface, floated in the air and wobbled in place. With intense focus, she managed to stabilize the sphere and slowly began moving it back toward her. It was a difficult process, with her almost completely losing control several times. The only way she could think of to describe the difficulty was to relate it to another exercise her sensei, or her grandfather, had taught her. The simplest version of this involved being able to continuously draw a circle in the air with one finger, while simultaneously drawing a square with another finger on her other hand. Its purpose, as could be surmised, was to teach a student to be able to do something with one hand, and a completely different thing with the other.
The difficulty was like that, only more so because another force, the mana, was constantly trying to push her hands into drawing anything but the shape she wanted. Nevertheless, she eventually managed to successfully pull the mana until it unstably fluctuated in front of her chest. Adding on another layer of difficulty, she decided to move a part of her body at the same time.
Very slowly, she started to move her hands up. The frequency of the wobbles increased significantly until it could hardly be considered a sphere anymore. However, she still had a small amount of control over it. Sweat began to dot her brow as, over the course of a minute, she raised her hands into a cupped position below the violently fluctuating mana. Finally, she lowered the mana until it rested within her hands.
Once there, she stopped trying to hold it in any particular shape, and it flopped into her hands at the same time as she sucked in a deep breath, realizing that she had been so focused that she hadn’t been breathing properly. In her hands, the mana was cool to the touch and, she was unsure, but it felt like it was…trembling?
Looking down at the mana that filled her cupped hands, the thought that this was what was sustaining her life crossed her mind. Immediately she was struck by how… fragile it seemed. She hated admitting it, but the appeared fragility of the mana reminded her of…herself.
Looking at it, she saw how small, pitiful, and weak she was, which starkly contrasted with the power she had held as her father's daughter. And now? Now it would only take a moment for the rest of her life to slip through her fingers. Faced with this revelation, a question arose that she had to answer: What would she do about it?
Her first instinct, her gut reaction, was to do what she had been doing for months now: run out and immediately face the problem head-on. To trust that the ability and training that she did have would get her through the situation. Whether it required her to lash out and eliminate any perceived threat, or if she had to do little more than posturing to hide how weak and pathetic she felt. It’s not what she had always done, but it’s what she had been doing ever since the execution of her parents. She had used everything she could to survive, and now, she had little left.
She started to take deep, even breaths to calm the raging anxiety churning in her stomach. Even though her lifespan had suddenly decreased, she was in no immediate danger of dying. Instead, she was arguably the safest she had been in a long time. So, no, she couldn’t rely on her gut response to bring her any further. Instead, she needed to take advantage of that safety, to take a step back, to take a look at the situation, and then regain control of her life again, one step at a time.
In short, she needed a plan.
After a few minutes of breathing, her anger and anxiety began melting away, replaced by a sense of calmness that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. She let the mana seep through her fingers, directing it into different shapes again. Only, this time, the mana seemed to not be resisting as much. She manipulated the mana as she mulled over her options, and by the time she was able to form her mana into a coil that wrapped around her forearm, she had a rough plan of what she was going to do.
First and foremost was the need for her to learn how to use her mana. And while that had already been established, and she was already doing it. In particular, she needed to get to a point where she could move around while controlling it at the same time. Doing that, she could then do other things while practicing her mana control.
Second, obviously, she needed to gain followers. But before that, she needed information on where she could even find uncontracted Demons. And once she could find them, she needed to figure out how to attract them to her side. She reckoned that there likely was a place where uncontracted Shadow Weaver-born Demons gathered, and, if she had to guess, it was probably on the stalactite that served as the bridge between the three stalagmites and the heart of the city. She planned to go there when she felt confident enough in her abilities to take care of herself. Before that, there was one Demon she could think of who would be willing to contract with her. Xalefore. Though that depended on if it was even possible to contract Demons who were from opposing clans.
“Isradine,” Eliza said with a controlled tone. At the same time, she slowly turned her head until she looked up at Isradine. The combination of speaking and moving caused Eliza’s mana to begin fluctuating wildly once again.
Upon hearing Eliza call her name, Isradine’s shadowy form froze, “Yes?” she responded with a bit of apprehension in her voice. It occurred to Eliza that Isradine might’ve gotten the impression that she was still angry due to the controlled tone in her voice. The thought of Isradine’s unease brought the littlest of smiles to Eliza’s face. After trying to hide important info, the least she deserved was a little discomfort.
Eliza continued to speak in a very careful and controlled way, trying not to lose control of her mana, “How do contracts with Demons from other clans work?”
Isradine processed Eliza’s question and then let out a small sigh of relief as she began to rotate again, “the short explanation is that the physical traits of the Demon that are a result of their specific type of mana will be slightly altered to accommodate the new mana but unchanged for the most part. However, all of their mana will be replaced by the mana of the clan they contract into.”
“So, for example, a beast-man from the Steels Bloods would become a Shadow Weaver who has a Steel-like body?” Demitrus asked.
“Possibly, but only if you were able to get a Count, near Duke level, Steel Blood to contract over. The Steel Bloods magic may harden their body, but that strengthening of the body only remains permanent if their mana capacity reaches a sufficient level to cause a transformation. Once that transformation occurs, they would no longer need to expend mana to harden their bodies, so if you were able to contract one of them, that transformation would remain with minor alterations. But good luck convincing one than because they're pretty set in their ways by the time they’re at that point.”
“When would they be most willing?” Eliza asked. More sweat began to bead on her brow due to the exertion of controlling her mana. This time she had managed to say the whole sentence while maintaining her mana in a spherical shape with very few fluctuations.
“It's much more common on the lower ranks of Demons, but if you challenge a Demon of similar rank to you and kill them, then some of their followers may decide to follow you after being released from their previous masters contract.” Isradine answered, but then she clarified in a serious tone, “But to make sure you understand, in Iyanu, this method is only possible in the arena since killing another Demon isn’t allowed otherwise.”
“Got it, that's what I needed to know,” Eliza said, closing her eyes and drawing her mana back into herself so that she could take a little break as she processed the information. She wasn’t certain yet, but it was likely Xalefore had been contracted to the Beastman Captain she had killed back in Abernach’s armory since Xalefore was trying to earn his favor. At the very least, her strength impressed him enough to make a run for it with their group. Given all that, it probably wouldn’t be too hard for her to convince him to make a contract.
Only, she would need to find him first. And to do that, she would probably need to hunt down Io and figure out if he had managed to find Xalefore and the baby Rakna yet.
Beyond that, she needed to gather information on all the Demons around her, to determine any potential allies and potential enemies. Until she did that, she couldn’t make many other plans because anything she could think of was too uncertain due to a lack of information.
Her self-allotted break time over; she took another deep breath to prepare herself before she started manipulating her mana again. This time she focused single-mindedly on getting herself to the point where she could move around while manipulating her mana. She had much to do and not a lot of time to do it.